a few more songs, mostly podcast recs
wow, hey, hi
Turns out, my two-part exploration of music videos and movies is getting a threepeat! After last week’s newsletter, two friends texted me with fun facts (fun fact: factoid doesn’t mean fun fact, it means false fact) worth sharing with the class. I present them now.
From the famed Liz P, re: “(Drive Me) Crazy”: can’t believe I know this but there is yet another tie-in here bc britney also guest starred on the fall 99 season premiere of sabrina and they played the drive me crazy MV over the end credits.
From a teacher friend whose name I won’t use because what if her students find this: Lizzie, love the movie/music video substack. I also want to mention Tonya Harding, a song by Sufjan Stevens written about the person and offered to the film but they didn’t use it. Movie and song separate things, but could have been intertwined
These convos, in turn, reminded me of…
Which led to…
I fear I’ve opened a can of worms. There are hundreds of songs written for and about movies, if you count those “inspired by” or ones just written for the closing credits. The one cute story about this is a man writing a song called “Up In The Air” and then finding out there was a movie being made of the same name and giving his cassette to the director and it ended up in the air movie.
I don’t think this newsletter should be about that forever, right? Or…should it? Do we want to talk about how perfectly the color grading on Paramore’s “Decode” matches Twilight?
No, enough.
A final, for now at least, word on the topic.
Every six months or so, a prompt goes around social media asking who the best fictional band or fictional song from a fictional band is. “That Thing You Do” from the movie of the same name is a popular response. As are the songs of Stillwater from Almost Famous, though this is a little harder to Google as there was also a real 1970s band called Stillwater, but they don’t have anything to do with the movie.
I’m sure we’ll start seeing the Aurora album from Daisy Jones and the Six popping up in the future, and hopefully the cast recordings from Stereophonic as well. Cool kids like myself always point to the soundtrack to Josie and the Pussycats, and more specifically, to fake boyband DuJour’s two songs (I will also admit that the boy band songs from The Idea of You are catchy).
But as fun as it is to compare notes on the topic, and it is fun, let’s stop pretending that there’s a conversation to be had about the “best.” There is no competition. THE WINNER IS “SCOTTY DOESN’T KNOW” FROM EUROTRIP. END OF STORY. Read the oral history of the track here, it’s worth it.
Yes that is Matt Damon.
Escaped capybara running around England, I love you.
And also, some pods…
One thing about me is I’m picky about podcasts. If you’re gonna talk about something — and I’m not able to interrupt? — you better know what you’re talking about. You better be charming, and not have vocal tics I don’t like, and you better edit out the part where you try to remember the name of an actor, because I am in my car knowing who that actor is, and I’m so annoyed.
Two-ish years ago, I asked my Instagram followers to recommend podcasts, and I got dozens of responses. I gave each of them a listen, sorting them into a March Madness-style bracket to determine the best podcast. Along the way, I found several entertaining and educational stories, though most recs were either too gruesome or too banal to hold my attention…like I said, I’m picky.
With all that in mind, dear reader, I recommend the following nine pods, for your listening pleasure. Drop your own in the comments.
(This episode of) Trust Me
Trust Me is a well done cults podcast with a twist: both of the hosts are survivors of cults/ high control groups. I haven’t listened to every episode — honestly, most cults kind of blur together after a while — but I recommend this specific episode because it’s about a fairly well-known actress falling for a scammer psychic.
I know a number of people who give their money to astrologists, tarot readers, whatever, and truly, if it’s not harming anyone, cool. But I think a lot of times people are harmed, and are too embarrassed to admit it, so the whole Metaphysical Industry gets this kind of benign reputation, when in reality there are people in it who do not have good intentions.
In this episode, Noël Wells breaks down exactly how she caught her psychic in a lie and got her money back, so there’s a scam but also catharsis, which you don’t usually get in stories about people being spiritually duped.
How Did This Get Made?
See: my post about parasocial relationships.
Who Killed JFK?
I genuinely don’t care about the answer to the central question. CIA? FBI? LBGTQIA? Insert punchline here!
But if Rob Reiner, director of my favorite movie (When Harry Met Sally), says it was a cover-up, then it was. Rob wouldn’t lie to me. The government would.
I didn’t understand maybe 60% of the actual evidence they went through (it’s very evidence-centric), but when they get to the part about witnesses suddenly dying after being subpoena’d…red flags!!!
The Dream
Did I mention I loathe New Age health grifters? You think Amway is bad…
Vaccinate your kids.
You Must Remember This/Manson
Karina Longworth’s “You Must Remember This” is about Hollywood history, mystery and scandal, and the multi-episode Charles Manson arc was popular enough that it’s also available as a standalone — “You Must Remember Mansion — in case you just want to listen to just those episodes. Absolutely fascinating.
We should talk more about how much Charles Manson was hanging out with The Beach Boys, because it was a lot.
Also, I didn’t totally put this together, although I guess I kind of always knew it…he didn’t kill anyone? He just strongly suggested to his followers that they should kill people, which they did, which is obviously very bad. Just interesting, as is the rest of the YMRT podcast.
(If this sounds good, there’s also a multi-part You’re Wrong About series covering OJ Simpson — he super did it — but I can’t recommend it as a complete story because the episodes came out sporadically until August 2021, at which point they were partway through dissecting the trial, and then…just stopped?)
Noble Blood
If I’m not at home, I’m probably at Dana’s house and she’s telling me how a necklace started a war. Now you can recreate that experience for yourself!
Maintenance Phase
I’ve written about MP before and I’ll write about it again because everyone needs to listen to it before they tell me one single thing about calories. Some of the science is a little cherry-picked, but the underlying thesis — the diet industry is an industry made to sell you a product, not help you — is rock solid.
Also, the hosts are so good at talking. Perfect Podcast Talking.
Who Shat On The Floor At My Wedding?
I wrote about this one once before. It’s like it says on the package. A seriously silly investigation into a truly stupid crime. Come for the lesbians, stay for the friendsbians.
Wind of Change
Wind of Change won the bracket. This is the best podcast I’ve ever listened to, perhaps tied with Serial. I almost don’t want to explain too much because the storytelling is so chef’s-kiss perfect, you should just trust them to give you the information that you need in the order that you need it. But the premise is…did the CIA write an 80s rock song to fuel the spread of capitalism/democracy? And also, how tf does the CIA work? No seriously though what…is it?
This podcast got me Patrick Radden Keefe-pilled. I’ve since listened to the audiobooks of all three of his nonfiction books and read more of his stuff on The New Yorker, and it’s all gotten me dangerously close to Thinking About Stuff. Like, I have some hot takes on both the opioid crisis and the Troubles that would get me canceled in certain circles, but I’m gonna keep all that off the record. Anyway, Wind Of Change rocks.
Wash your hands!
Lizzie
Video of the week:
